FIFA Rejects Suárez’s Appeal of 4-Month Ban

By ANDREW DAS

July 10, 2014

A FIFA appeals committee on Thursday rejected motions filed by Luis Suárez and Uruguay’s soccer federation that had sought to overturn or reduce his four-month suspension from soccer for biting another player.

Suárez was barred on June 26 for nine international matches and from all soccer-related activity for four months after he bit an Italian defender on the shoulder in a World Cup match. The ban will keep Suárez from playing for his English club, Liverpool, until at least October, though he was said to be close to a transfer to Barcelona in Spain.

FIFA’s appeals committee announced its decision in a news release and added that Suárez or the Uruguayan federation, or both, could try to file new appeals to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland, “subject to certain conditions.”

It was not clear if Suárez or the federation would do so. The case provoked strong reaction in Uruguay, where fans, including the country’s president, rallied in support of Suárez, their country’s best player. But he undercut the case for any appeal by apologizing for his actions June 30.

“The truth,” Suárez wrote in a statement posted online, “is that my colleague Giorgio Chiellini suffered the physical result of a bite in the collision he suffered with me. For this: I deeply regret what occurred. I apologize to Giorgio Chiellini and the entire football family. I vow to the public that there will never again be another incident like” this.